


On Rogue Telepaths, And How The Corps Classifies Them

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [131]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Crimes & Criminals, Discipline, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Essays, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Gen, How canon misled you, Justice, Mind-Wipe Machines (Babylon 5), Psi Corps, Rogue Telepaths, Teenagers, Telepath culture, The Corps is Mother and Father, Worldbuilding, parenting, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: What's a "Type A Blip," anyway? And what happens when the Corps finds them?Do they really torture people?(The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!)





	On Rogue Telepaths, And How The Corps Classifies Them

**Author's Note:**

> What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

Canon tells us that (among other ways the Corps presumably classifies rogue telepaths), they're sorted into types A, B, and C.

For example, there's a woman named Lara Brazg (as given from the point of view of then fourteen-year old Bester, in normal age reckoning). Deadly Relations, p. 44:

_Lara Brazg was thirty and had been born in Canada. She had registered with Psi Corps at the age of fourteen, a P5, and gone on the sleepers. Disappeared at twenty-one. She was implicated in two assassination attempts and one package bombing, and had kidnapped at least two teeps from reeducation facilities. A classic type A Blip, she might even be a good person who had been led astray, brainwashed by some highly organized and cynical underground._

_Her type could be shown the truth, saved, reeducated, and end up a useful member of the Corps. It had happened more than once. In her picture she looked pretty, a dirty blonde with a face smudged by light freckles._

This is then contrasted with another telepath fugitive, a man named Portis Nielsson. Deadly Relations, p. 44-45:

_Portis Nielsson was a different story. Born in the UK, he was a year younger than Brazg, but had a much longer rap sheet. Several felonies: two murders during a holdup, one count of manslaughter from a bar fight in Madrid, numerous petty and two grand theft indictments. He had spent six years in jail as a juvenile, but had never tested positive for telepathy._

_Toward the end of his stay, the prison psychologist nevertheless had become convinced that Nielsson had psi abilities, but simply did not have the mitochondrial marker - not that unusual; after all, thirty percent of telepaths lacked it. En route to a reeducation facility, Nielsson had escaped and had been at large ever since. In the past four years, his criminal activities had shifted focus to underground-related offenses. Nielsson looked like a type C Blip, a sociopath who had found an organization to validate him. While any teep could be brought around by reeducation, Nielsson's type - a born criminal, used to abusing his powers - was the toughest to change._

_His photo seemed to confirm that - even on the vid screen, his eyes 'cast malice, and his square jaw was set in an intractable smirk._

Since this is all we get (here anyway), **_and it's coming through the point of view of an adolescent_** , let me explain.

The Corps doesn't classify people as "natural born criminals" - that's how Bester's thinking of it. Criminology is complicated (this was what Bey taught at the Academy), and adolescent Bester is oversimplifying it to an absurd degree.

The Corps does, however, classify rogue telepaths, most importantly by the likelihood of rehabilitation (hence this A, B and C stuff).

This classification is a little different than how most readers might expect a justice system to work - the primary consideration here is **_not_** the seriousness of crimes committed, whether or not the crimes were violent, the offender's age, the length of time he or she has been engaging in criminal behavior, or other such factors, but the likelihood of successful reintegration. It's a little different and requires some explanation.

First, to back up, about the term "Blip."

  * **"Blip" is police slang for "fugitive."** It probably comes from "blip on the radar."


  * [It does not refer exclusively to telepaths](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/post/166876578638/why-are-rogue-telepaths-called-blips#notes), although in the Corps it does, because they're not tracking down normal fugitives. Though Psi Cops do have jurisdiction to arrest normals who hurt telepaths, they don't call normal fugitives "Blips."


  * When Garibaldi is on the run from the authorities in _Survivors_ , he's referred to (by normal authorities) as a "blip." Normal police use the slang term, too - we just happen to see far more telepath fugitives in canon than normal fugitives, so it (erroneously) looks like the term is exclusively used for telepaths.


  * Telepaths whom the Corps doesn't know about (e.g. Ivanova's mom) are not "Blips." A "Blip" is someone on the run from law enforcement. Again, it doesn't mean someone who is not in the Corps, because that person could be unknown to the Corps, could be under the cutoff for the Corps, could be on sleepers, etc. etc. The term does include those who have run away seeking a better life, telepaths who are working (voluntarily or not) for organized crime syndicates, and the small number who are trying to destroy the Corps (and/or EarthGov) for ideological reasons. Telepaths who have been kidnapped are also referred to as Blips, even though they aren't in control of their circumstances. (For example, Deadly Relations, p. 262, referring to telepaths who were probably trafficked.)


  * "Blip" is sometimes written capitalized and sometimes not, afaik.



Second,  a bit of legal background, that I've mentioned before I get into more later in the project:

  * The Corps functions as a **_separate and parallel criminal system_** , and can actually completely wipe someone's criminal record if the circumstances warrant it.



_Final Reckoning_ opens with a bit about a telepath named Joseph Begay. Final Reckoning, p. 2-4:

_He had come a long way from being that punk in Ganado, nothing better in his future than the leadership of a smalltime gang and an early, violent death. Whatever its faults, he owed the Corps for that. They had plucked him out of that life, given him a chance to do some good._

...

_He had killed a boy once, before Psi Corps had found him. He didn't remember much about the fight, only that he had been losing until the anger woke in him, a fury so cold and brilliant it made him feel like a giant. When they had pulled him off the older kid, he'd already pulped in his head with a rock. Begay had been twelve, a minor, and so had been remanded to juvenile court. That's when his psi powers were discovered, and that's when the Corps had given him absolution, and a new life._

_Ten years ago. He was a new man._

He was a P12. The Corps got jurisdiction (and custody) of him, at age twelve, and began to work on his rehabilitation, one piece of which was dulling the memory of the fight. The Corps decided it would be better for his rehabilitation of his memory of those events was a little hazy.

They were also worked to make him less of a sociopath, which isn't nearly as easy as blurring a specific memory. They were still working on this, and his major anger problems, when the Telepath War broke out (when he was sixteen). So a few years later, with likely no education since, he ended up folded into the new metasensory division of the Earth Alliance Bureau of Investigation (EABI), in a new world order that taught him that the Corps had been bad, and that the likes of Lyta Alexander had been "heroes".

Then EABI sent him (and plenty of other) P12 youth after Bester, largely untrained and undisciplined, because Hey Kids You're All We Have, And If You Die, Well, Fewer Powerful Teeps Around!

And guess how that all turned out? Right.

But my point here is to show how much legal power the Corps had - they are a parallel and independent criminal legal system, and even though Begay committed a horrific, brutal murder, they **_wiped his legal record entirely clean and let him start again_** , in the rehabilitation process. They can do that.

Now here's the big question:

_**What happens to telepaths in this rehabilitation process?** _

And as should be no surprise to readers who have been following  _Behind the Gloves_ , canon distorts things again. They make it seem like everybody's tortured and brainwashed, so clearly absolutely anything in the Universe is better than whatever "reeducation" is - even [blowing yourself up with a hand grenade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13466985). (See, the Dexters.) The episode _The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father_ supposedly shows a rogue who has come out of "reeducation" (disheveled and disoriented, swearing allegiance to the Corps) as some sort of "success" that makes the Corps leadership happy - when a) this isn't what happens in the first place, and b) nothing done that badly would ever be any kind of "success."

I guess the point is to show that the Corps claims to be "reeducating" other telepaths, but they're actually just torturing them, like this is North Korea or something, and then everyone's supposed to be happy about that? (Because they're the Corps and "They're The Bad Guys"?)

If they actually showed what people were like when they reentered society, this wouldn't seem like OMG SCARY THEY'VE BEEN TORTURED BY AN EVIL REGIME and would just show them to be ordinary people who had a messed up past and overcame it, and this wouldn't frighten the viewers or promote the show's agenda to portray the Corps as evil. (And it might even backfire.) So they write it this way instead.

Rewriting someone's mind is honestly a last resort. And it's done not in the "WE MUST MAKE EVERYONE LOYAL TO THE CORPS OR ELSE" sense, but as a last resort alternative to life imprisonment, or else in more subtle and strategic ways as part of a program to break up terrorist cells, as I described [in this essay here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10639059) about why EarthForce brass were so afraid of Sinclair, and wanted to get him replaced as commander of the station.

Someone like Portis Nielsson, who is extremely violent and dangerous, would likely fail at more moderate methods aimed at changing his behavior, and would likely be facing some of this eventually, but let's be honest - if he were a normal, he would be facing the same fate (actually, in some ways worse) in a "death of personality" machine. Those things wipe literally **_all_** of someone's memories, and their personality (because "minds are like computers!"), whereas telepaths, actually able to see what they're doing, are strategic and nuanced and don't care that you know what you did in your past, and how bad it was (like Joseph Begay)... **_they just want you not to go around killing people going forward_**.

So canon, as always, is full of fucking hypocrites when they praise the "mind wipe" machines as some sort of progressive alternative to the death penalty that makes people into model citizens (with the only criticism coming from Garibaldi, that the offenders get off "too easy" after their horrific crimes, and don't suffer enough). But no no... everyone sentenced to this is _**guilty as sin, as we can all see on screen!**_ and no one is _**ever**_ [wrongfully convicted in the EA justice system](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14712179), and it's just those _**terrible, horrible telepaths in the Corps**_ who are going around brainwashing and torturing people for crimes, or political dissent or whatever.

"Mind-wipe machines" are progressive and merciful, you see. It's just those scary **_telepaths_** over there who are evil, because... they're telepaths, and whatever they're doing to each other, it's out of our mundane control, and they're doing it with their scary minds, not by trusted **_machines_**.

So, with all this covered, what actually happens to most rogue telepaths?

I'll show you this in more detail when I post the reconstructed story about the life of Lara Brazg, but in short, most Blips are "Type A" - they got dragged into a life of crime they regret and wish they could escape, they ran away from the Corps hoping for a better life (even if that turned out to be a lie), they were trafficked by mundanes and other telepaths into slavery, something like that. Some have committed crimes other than running away (like Lara, who was involved in violent activities), while most others have not. They're placed in special facilities and given the supports they need to reenter society and function both emotionally, and in a job.

All rogue telepaths, even if they did horrific things, like Joseph Begay, first face accountability for their actions - and then _**they are forgiven**_.

**_Hang on, wait, did you say "forgiven"?_ **

Yeah, I did. Let me explain.

When Bester was fourteen (recently fifteen by telepath age reckoning), he ran away from school on a whim to chase rogue telepath Laura Brazg. His actions 1) got a Psi Cop killed, a cop who had been a student of Sandoval Bey, and who was a respected and admired member of the community, 2) got a rogue telepath killed (Portis Nielsson, who was shot by police when he fired on them), and 3) almost got Bester himself killed (Nielsson shot Bester in the chest). His actions also cost both the Corps and normal authorities a lot of time and resources, as they had to launch a huge, sudden manhunt for him that stretched from Geneva to Paris.

As Bey puts it on page 75 of Deadly Relations: "Oh no, Mr. Bester. We had no idea those two [rogue telepaths] were in Paris. The Blip _we_ were looking for was you."

What happens next is a long story and I'll get there, but Bester gets very angry about the punishment Bey has set for him (having no idea this was done to him literally to save his life from the director, who wants to kill him). He goes to Bey's office, generally shows himself to be a naive brat (Bey even calls him "pitifully naive" on p. 86), and gets some Life Lessons.

When the strict and serious talk about how his life is headed down the drain doesn't work, and he goes on _**again**_ about wanting to be a good Psi Cop (without having any damn idea what that actually amounts to), Bey slaps him across the face. "That's for lying," he snaps, and he explains that the Psi Cop who **_died trying to rescue him_** after he ran off on a selfish escapade had been a good Psi Cop (and Bey's student). Bester throws a temper tantrum.

Page 89:

"Bey stared at him for a moment, then sighed. He laid a hand on Al's shoulder and squeezed." And Bester breaks down crying, because "he couldn't remember another person touching him with kindness, with care, in so very, very long. It hurt terribly. ... The older man made no move, just kept his hand on his shoulder, neither drawing him nearer nor pushing him away."

He tells him things will be all right, and then he tells him a story from his own youth, which got CUT OUT of that scene (???) and is only mentioned in an entirely unrelated, random place at the end of the book.

Page 265:

          "He remembered something Bey had told him.

          _My father slapped me once. Actually, he slapped me twice - once with the back of his hand, and then, quickly, with his palm. Later, I understood. The first blow was a rejection - he was rejecting the thing I had done, I don't even remember what it was now._

_The second blow - with the palm - was to take me back. "I reject you - but I take you back." That was his message._

          It was a good lesson. Sometimes there had to be punishment, but there must always be reconciliation in a family. There must always be a gathering back in, a second slap with the palm. Family."

Not only did the book not include this conversation (and its lesson) in the scene when it actually happened, or show the connection between Bey's childhood story and how he's parenting adolescent (and dangerously disobedient) Bester, but the book **_also_** doesn't connect the point here to the much larger cultural points about life in the Corps, and how the Corps views and treats those who transgress.

(They tell this story at the end of the book, in between something about Byron (unrelated) and something about Ironheart (even more unrelated), and on top of that mix up the timeline because the Ironheart incident happened TWO YEARS after Byron went rogue, not the next day (as the book presents). But forget all that since the book has to be "media tie-in" and end with the set-up for Bester's first appearance on the station... forget about the fact that there was actually two years in between! /sigh/)

The point here is that this is how the Corps looks at, and treats, rogue telepaths. All rogue telepaths, whatever their classification.

"Sometimes there had to be punishment, but there must always be reconciliation in a family. There must always be a gathering back in, a second slap with the palm. Family."

They are not trying to torture and "brainwash people into obedience". Even when they have to punish transgressors, there is always the goal of **_reconciliation_** , of gathering back in those who have done wrong or gone astray. That's why they wiped Joseph Begay's criminal record, "[gave] him absolution, and a new life." That's what **_actually_** happens to the majority of rogue telepaths, that's exactly why canon's misleading you about their fate.

And as I go to great lengths to show elsewhere, this is the opposite of how mundanes (such as the director) view telepaths who step out of line - Johnston just wants Bester killed (even though he's just a kid). The teachers and administrators rise up to stop it, including (but not limited to) Bey, who saves Bester's life **_three times_** before the director has him killed on fake charges of treason.

Executing a fourteen/fifteen-year-old kid isn't "justice," it's just a powerful mundane flexing his muscles and trying to demonstrate his power over telepaths by having a kid killed. That's what Bey refers to here, after he's put his own life on the line to rescue Bester from the director at the disciplinary hearing.

Page 79-80:

"Don't thank me yet, Mr. Bester. Despite what I told the director, your behavior was inexcusable. Your unthinking actions resulted in the death of a Psi Cop and of another telepath. I should have let him have you."

"Why didn't you, sir?"

"Because, Mr. Bester, the director is a mundane. Because he has no sense of justice. Rest assured - I do."

(Not that Bester understands, because see above, how he goes to Bey's office and complains that "this is worse than anything the director would have done" (p. 86). (Bey laughs at him and calls him "pitifully naive".) He tells the boy that he's doing this to save his life, but for political reasons he can't say that the director would have tried to have him killed, so he explains it in terms of trying to save him from emotional self-destruction, which is also true.)

Justice means forgiveness. It means family. It means, as Bey explains to Bester in that same scene (on p. 88), "You love the Corps, but that isn't enough. You must love those _in_ the Corps, and they must love you. You must love the Blips you hunt. You must love the world you live in, Mr. Bester."

And they don't just care that Bester's irresponsible, unthinking actions led to the death of a "good Psi Cop" - they also care that his actions led to the death of Portis Nielsson, even after every horrible thing he'd done to normals and telepaths alike.

Because **_all telepaths_** are family. And _**all telepaths**_ can be forgiven (even if they must face punishment first).


End file.
